Spykee Fat, real name Chin Hung-chieh (金弘杰), is known for transforming dance floors into head-banging mosh pits by mixing incongruous tracks like Rage Against the Machine’s Killing in the Name Of with The Gossip’s Standing in the Way of Control, all played over electro riffs.
After a six-month hiatus spent in Japan, he returned to Taiwan last summer with his then-pregnant girlfriend, later to become his wife, and a new sound. He plays at The Wall in Taipei on Oct. 29.
Spykee headed north after becoming disgruntled with the state of electronic dance music in Taiwan. He says the tipping point was warming up for Steve Aoki at Luxy in December of 2009.
Photo courtesy of Adward Te Hua Tsai
“I was sitting on the right side of the stage and looking at the hipsters [in the audience]. I knew then that I had to move on,” said Spykee, whose daughter was born in March. “But it’s not easy for a DJ, or any artist, to just change their style. I was really confused at that time until I went to Japan and left it all behind.”
Fans say that his shift in style to a more tech house sound with fewer vocals is noticeably different, but the 30-year-old says he still plays anything from electro, techno, house, and drum ’n’ bass to Chinese and Japanese pop songs. “What I play, I think you can just call it dance music,” he said.
When Spykee was 20, his career in music was already underway as a vocalist in a rock band, but it disbanded in 2001 and on an impulse he bought DJ equipment and dove into the drum ’n’ bass scene.
Spykee went on to form Tomodachi with F Dragon in 2008. Before the pair split in 2009, they threw a party called Daaaaaance Rock Vol. 1, which became the inspiration for Dance Rock Taipei, a promotion group that Spykee now runs solo.
Though Dance Rock Taipei takes credit for organizing Aoki’s debut performance in Taiwan at The Wall in 2008, Spykee says he prefers to focus on local DJs.
He says that clubs in Taiwan focus too much on big name acts, and that the local talent is going to waste.
“There are tonnes of parties every weekend, so obviously we have lots of DJs here. But people hardly talk about local DJs, so we get low fees and no promotion. Then clubs can’t make any money. We should look more at our own Taiwanese DJs, and learn to open our mind,” Spykee said.
Next weekend Spykee plays alongside Gesaffelstein and Brodinski, who opened for Soulwax at Legacy Taipei last year, for a Halloween edition of Dance Rock Taipei.
“Three years ago we had a then-new Steve Aoki at The Wall with 500 people. Now he is going to play at the World Trade Center. So when DJs like Aoki become mainstream icons, promoters like Dance Rock Taipei can do the cutting edge artists like Gesaffelstein. Maybe in two years it will be Gesaffelstein playing at the World Trade Center,” said Spykee.
Dance Rock Taipei presents Spykee, Brodinski and Gesaffelstein at The Wall (這牆), B1, 200, Roosevelt Rd Sec 4, Taipei City (台北市羅斯福路四段200號B1), Oct. 29.
Advance tickets are sold out. Admission is NT$1,200 at the door.
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